Robot ethics is always a pretty hairy subject to tackle, largely because human ethics is something that’s hard to reduce to logical rules, and robots really, really like logical rules. There are ways to try and make it work, though, and researchers at the University of Connecticut have been trying to combine machine learning with traditional ethical philosophy to teach robots to behave ethically.

The approach they’re taking is based on a technique pioneered by a philosopher named David Ross, who’s automatically awesome because he’s Scottish. Ross suggested that when people make ethical decisions, they’re actually balancing a bunch of different variables against each other, including things like ‘do good,’ ‘don’t do harm,’ ‘keep your promises,’ ‘don’t be annoying,’ and other things in that vein. Variables, you say? You know what are good with variables? Robots, that’s what.

In this demo, for example, Nao is trying to give medication to someone who doesn’t want it. The robot is considering several variables here, including the importance of taking the medication at all, the importance of taking the medication at a specific time, and the implications of the patient’s refusal. Essentially, Nao does some math to balance the values of these variables, and decides that the patient gets to refuse their meds once, but after that Nao appeals to a higher authority (the doctor, who we can probably assume is a human).

So where do the values for all of these variables come from in the first place? That’s the tricky bit, but for things like medications, you can see how it would be possible to come up with figures. Other values (like the importance of respecting the wishes of a human) are much harder to quantify, but part of the hope is that robots will be able to observe the results of their ethical decisions, and use that information to help them make better choices in the future.

[ UConn ]

IEEE Automaton scored a sneak peak at Aldebaran Robotics’ newest version of their Nao robot at the Humanoids 2010 conference in Nashville recently. Nao’s body has been completely reworked to be more robust, and longer curved arms give the bot more space in which to pick stuff up and throw it at you. A new motion engine helps Nao move more fluidly, and as you can see in the demo above, it exhibits some fetchingly human moves.

Nao also got a new head, along with an upgraded brain that helps it to recognize speech and images. It can do some form of facial recognition and it sounds like it’s capable of reading text as well, which is pretty handy. There also seem to have been a few, um, attitude adjustments… This latest version of now is the spunkiest yet.

Incidentally, I never really noticed this before, but doesn’t Nao sound an awful like those freaky sentry guns from Portal? Oh well, it’s probably just a coincidence.

Probably.

VIA [ IEEE ]

Last year, it was a Billie Jean tribute dance. This year, twenty Aldebaran Robotics Naos are kicking it up a notch by dancing in sync to nearly ten minutes worth of music including Maurice Ravel’s Bolero. Never mind the choreography that must have been involved… Consider what ten minutes with no screw ups implies about the precision and repeatability of Nao’s software. Impressive, but until Nao figures out how to do a head spin, I think Manoi can still bust better moves.

VIA [ Wired ]

I don’t know where Nao got its hands on a Surface table, but I’m insanely jealous. My nonexistent knowledge of French makes me think that Nao is probably saying something like, “wow, this thing is awesome! Too bad you don’t have one!” The fact that Nao can use the table at all, though, is a good example of one of the advantages of Surface: it’s not touch sensitive, but rather uses an array of cameras underneath the semi-transparent tabletop to track fingertips and other objects, letting you manipulate things in all kinds of nifty ways.

If you’re interested in what else Surface can do, I’ve posted a video after the break from CES 2008, where I got a hands-on demo of Surface. If you want to play around with it for yourself someplace outside of Vegas, some AT&T stores have them, but it’s not likely they’re set up for gaming. Shame. (Read more…)

This, apparently, is the trick Nao has up his nonexistent sleeve that’ll help him pick up chicks. Personally, I can throw a Frisbee slightly better than Nao, but it hasn’t helped me pick up chicks at all, unless you count picking them up off the ground after your wayward Frisbee smashes into the side of their head. Oh well, I can only assume it’s because I don’t live in Japan.

Watch Nao dance (’cause Nao likes to dance), after the jump. (Read more…)